An inexperienced CSIS agent, Lucas Young, infiltrates a collective of performance and conceptual artists dubbed "Apollo's Army." After assuming the identity of an experimental poet, Lucas joins the group on a cross-country tour of Canada in the summer of 2010. Along the way, this 21st century troupe of court jesters crash a poetry reading in Banff, represent a fictional country in a multi-cultural parade in Calgary, resurrect Louis Riel as a guitar-god in Saskatchewan, heckle debaters at an arts symposium in Winnipeg, and storm a Toronto printing press to publish their manifesto. Hands of the Tyrants is a satirical romp that laughingly offers a noisy raspberry to the absurd machinations of the art world.